Death and Time are Relative
by The Assassin's Pen
Summary: Stephen thought he had this sorcerer thing down-or at least down well enough to try dimensional exploring without immediately fatal consequences. Trippy one, maybe two-shot in which I re-injure Stephen and strand him in a dimension that only makes sense if you don't try to make it make sense. T for injury. Cover by Uberbee on Tumblr.


Disclaimer-I am once again writing while barely conscious so any mistakes are probably due to that.

This fic was in part from a prompt my sister gave where she wanted to see Stephen re-open his wound and the Ancient One help him. I didn't want to break cannon so instead I experimented and came up with this. It's the writing equivalent of a trippy sketch, so we'll see if it's actually readable when I get up in the morning. I did kinda let it get as weird and trippy as my sleep deprived imagination wanted. Seemed appropriate for this fandom.

* * *

When Stephen passed out, he fully expected never to wake up again.

 _Well,_ he thought just before losing consciousness. T _hat didn't last very long_. He'd only been master of a sanctum for a month and already he was dying in another dimension. Some master sorcerer he was.

Eyes, not quite green and not quite kind, watched him out of the dark. This dimension was not gentle, and slowly, as the sorcerer lay there taking his last breaths, the shadows began to peel themselves out of their spaces and creep forward.

They smelled life bleeding out of him, wanted to lick the nectar seeping from the split in his breast that hadn't fully closed.

"Go, take this with you," Wong had said, sending Stephen into a dimension that smelled of sulfer and shimmered with the distortion of heat in the air. Where he walked, ice spread from his boots and when he turned to face the thing looming up behind him there was no temperature at all in the blast of dry air and abstract sound.

The ground shattered as he hit it, the spells he'd conjured as shields melting all over his hands and seeping into his scars, leaving gold trails in the creases of his palms. He lay there on his back for a moment trying to breathe, trying to blink away the spots in his vision, but when he moved to get up something tore open inside and he choked on the saliva he inhaled with his shock. The pain was intense, in many ways worse than when he'd first been stabbed and his brow twisted in confusion—why was this happening now? It had been some time since his stabbing. His body had seemed healed. Even Christine had cleared him.

As the thing advanced on him he felt the sickening shudder of manipulated time and groaned pitifully, turning onto his side and trying to crawl away, to give himself a little space to collect himself and fight back. The creature loomed and he closed his eyes against a wave of nausea, breathing hard once through his nose before getting sick. He didn't bring up much, just some blood and bile, but the pain it caused in his chest was so intense he couldn't breathe for many moments and his vision blurred white.

He groped for his sling ring, feeling the cold metal but having no idea how he was going to get out of this one.

He managed to get the ring on his fingers, but he lacked the strength to get up. The creature smashed limbs that weren't solid against ground that wasn't obedient to any laws of physics and Stephen's body prickled with the aftershock of electricity. His body twitched painfully and he curled onto his side, burying his head under his arm as he tried just to breathe again. Tears leaked from his eyes and blood seeped form his chest, and the pressure building around his heart was all too eerily familiar. His cloak had given up trying to get him on his feet and wrapped around him tight, like one human would another to shield them with their own body.

Why the beast left he had no idea, but one moment it seemed ready to finish him and the next it was gone. A shimmer of warped light hung in the air and then suddenly splintered, pieces of it dropping away and disappearing into the void left in the absence.

He dared to raise his head and peer over his shoulder with red eyes, blood dribbling down the side of his mouth as he gave a huff of relief. He clutched at his chest and worked to get up. The only way he made it was with the cloak's help. He stumbled, doing his best to cast a gateway with his sling ring, but his mind was a static of pain and exhaustion and the sickly hum of distorted time still spiced the air.

It was into a velvety, candle-lit dimension that he stumbled and passed out in the open, mossy place that could have been some kind of forest, were it not so very dead and so very _hungry_.

The leaves peered down to look at him and saplings lifted their heads, blinking blank, gold eyes as they tore up roots to slide closer. A blood thing, a warm thing, a thing of muscle and rich marrow was dying in their clearing. It would be best if they could drink from him while the heat and the glow of life still lingered in his veins. One of the smallest saplings flit like a skipping picture over to his chest and reached through the cloth he was wearing to dip a clawed finger into the open wound. It drew its hand back and sucked on its fingers.

The blood was fragrant and hot, fresh and near to the source of his life.

 _Take its heart_ , one of the shadows whispered, flitting across Stephen's crumpled body like the brush of a lover. The cloak of levitation tried to protect its master, but it had no effect on things that walked in the folds between dimensions.

 _Take its heart and split it open, drink the life while it still pulses._

The gateway Stephen had opened still sang sparks into the air, and the cloak made an effort to pull him towards it. Roots began to snake out of the black dirt and split the mossy carpet, wrapping around Stephen's arms and legs, growing up across his chest in a cradling embrace.

He'd stopped breathing properly one-hundred point three seconds ago. The cloak shuddered, pulling in vain, trying to defend him in vain.

His portal sputtered and died.

 _The prize, the prize must be alive_. A swarm of starving saplings warred with the shadows for the right to feed, their claws pulling shreds to flutter in petals to the ground. One of the shadows pressed into Stephen's chest and closed its hands around one of his ribs, catlike ears flattening as it peered inside. _The prize_ , it hummed to its siblings. _The prize still beats faintly_. _Help me cut it free. We will eat well, if we hurry_.

A flash of light cast the shadows away, sent the saplings scattering lest they be incinerated. A woman came striding into the ring, but she froze when she saw Stephen's bloodied face. She lowered her hood, staring at him with her pale eyes.

"Stephen?" she asked, crouching and passing a hand over him from head to hip without actually touching. Touching him could be very dangerous—she could feel the sinews of broken time still clinging to him, knew that this was not the Stephen she'd just reprimanded for taking books from the library under Wong's nose. "Good to know you survive your training," she said to herself, rubbing her hands together and summoning a fresh energy to lend him. She couldn't touch him, but she could try to help him. "I don't believe this is your end," she said, pressing her palms together hard and then casting outwards, a wave of golden energy washing over Strange's motionless body and breaking the roots. He gasped weakly and his eyes opened, the silvery iris cloudy with confusion.

He frowned at her, trying hard to push himself into a sitting position. He only managed because his cloak did most of the work, wrapping around him and helping him keep steady. "I'm dead."

The statement was flat, though the Ancient One heard the hint of the question in his tone. She pressed her lips together and gave him a tight smile, not letting herself dwell on what his statement meant. There was only one reason he would see her as a sign he was dead. "No, you're not dead. Not yet. You can find your way out again, but you must get up, get to your own time and place for aid."

"My own time..." he frowned.

"The shreds of a misplaced moment are still clinging to you and there is sulfer dusting your clothes. Some demon that feeds off misplaced time and manipulates stolen moments for its advantage injured and then displaced you. You won't be able to go anywhere with your sling ring until those threads unravel and you drop back to your own time. It will wear off, but you need to stay alive until it does. I can protect you from the feeders here, but you must keep your own body functioning. I cannot interact with you physically or we could cause this entire dimension to collapse."

He huffed, blood staining his teeth. He licked his lips and the copper taste made him want to gag. "Of course it would."

He sat there with a hand clutching his chest, trying to sort better what she was telling him through the fog of pain. Breathing was still far too difficult, and his heartbeat felt rapid and painful. Slowly, as he stared into her face, the situation made a kind of sense. He'd ended up in another dimension trying to escape his attacker and time had gotten folded in the process. His injury had opened back up because the demon had manipulated the time in his own body back to only a few days after being injured. The wound re-opened, and if his pericardium didn't hold he would be right back where he'd been stumbling for Christine—only this time there would be no Christine.

He looked hard at the Ancient One, an entirely different kind of pain lancing his heart. She was still dead, he was still alive. This was her in the past. He couldn't say or do anything that might change what had happened. Despite being more flexible than Mordo, he still could sense what a dire thing messing with time was.

He just really, really wished he'd brought the Eye with him for this one. He understood a little better what Infinity Stones were and why they were bad to wear as fashion accessories but by the _gods_ this hurt and he didn't want to die next to his deceased master in the middle of a bunch of carnivorous trees. Slowly, measuring every breath in case he didn't get another, Stephen crossed his legs and rest his hands on his knees. He couldn't even begin to control their trembling. "What," he breathed, his voice sticking. "What do I do?"

"Focus inward," The Ancient One instructed, sitting across from him and studying him. He'd come a very long way since his stolen astral studies . She couldn't help the surge of pride in seeing just how far from a selfish, shattered man he'd come.

"Know your own body and what it needs to function," she said. "Feel the damage, find the source of the breach, and seal it with magic. I told you that Jonathan Pangborn was convinced he couldn't walk and that I convinced him he could. For the next five minutes, Stephen, convince your heart that it can beat. Convince your lungs they are clear and undamaged. Convince your nerves there is no pain. It will stave off shock, clearing your mind enough that when the warp in time is gone you'll be able to conjure a gateway and escape."

"You told me Jonathan Pangborn wasn't healed, that he uses magic to walk," Stephen said, never the less doing as she'd instructed. Her eyebrows went up and he shrugged one shoulder. "You already know you're not talking to the version of me that you know. Somewhere," he swallowed the lump in his throat without much success. "Down the road you tell me the whole story. I know his healing was an illusion."

She shook her head. "No, not an illusion, just not healing as many in the human world consider it. You will heal, Stephen. You must only pass through this fire first." She raised a hand, her fingers coming within centimeters of his chest without actually touching. "Focus," she coaxed. "Focus inward, feel the sinews in your own body, the cells and electricity in your heart, the strands that hold your corporal form in balance and beauty. Observe the web of your nervous system. You understand better than most what that picture should look like. Now fix it."

He closed his eyes, centering carefully, choosing first to numb the pain so he could recall well enough to go any further. The pressure was slowly building around his heart—he was chokingly aware of that awful sensation coming back. He focused on the tiny tear in his pericardium and used magic to smooth it over and seal it up. Slowly, thread by thread, he wove magic into his battered body, silencing nerves, stopping bleeding, knitting himself together with the golden thread until he saw himself for a split second as some enchanted version of Frankenstein's creation.

"Breathe, Stephen," the Ancient One reminded softly, and when his chest rose in obedience she pulled her hand away so as not to touch him. "Very good. Sustaining yourself like this cannot go on for long, but it should buy you enough time." She smiled a little to herself, observing how her headstrong student had learned to humble himself and listen. She knew this folding of time was something she'd have to counteract later, but right then she was grateful for the chance to see what she clearly wasn't going to live to. He would do great things, she could sense it. As the last threads of time released their grip on him and he began to fade, she raised a hand in farewell. "Good luck, Stephen Strange."

For a long time he kept his eyes closed, carefully shoring up his defenses and his barriers, so focused that he barely felt it when the cloak tugged gently on his shoulders and then brushed his cheek. He opened his eyes, blinking a few times to get used to the low light again. The tingle of wrong time had finally bled out of the air. She was gone.

Stiffly, moving so as not to tear his magical sutures, Stephen raised aching hands and conjured a gateway. For the second time in less than a month he stepped bleeding into a mop closet.

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This might have a second chapter. I haven't decided.


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